well, as promised, here's nats recap.

Friday, May 10. I wake up at 6:00 and go to the airport, where I manage to forget my phone at security somehow (dw i got it back). The flight to dallas was uneventful but after that i was with NL008 for the flight. basically we just gave each other problems that progressively got harder. one of the problems was a troll problem that he fell for :D i ended up getting nauseous at the landing because there was a lot of turbulence also NL008 received a deck of cards from the flight attendant, which would have quite an impact on what we would do at nats.

anyway, after arriving and getting to the hotel, channing421 and DT got their room keys pretty fast but me and NL008 had to wait a few hours so we just hanged out in their room. channing421 had to leave for something so the rest of us stayed in the room, and DT and NL008 started pillow fighting :skull: this would continue throughout nats

anyway when channing421 came back we got some team round practices. idr much about the practices themselves other than that a bunch of them were old aime problems that channing memmed. then we traded some pins and i got everything except WI and PR (i got them both for free later).

after that NL008 did stnuochtam at the hotel room (we'd gotten our keys then) and got 23 i believe, pretty good given the difficulty of the test, tho i do wish he had solved T5 which was not very hard in my opinion, though it did have 0 solves

anyway me and NL008 would stay up until midnight discussing [redacted]. i wouldnt sleep for another ~hour xook

Saturday, May 11. This day started out with a bunch of team practices and the normal. we had really bad french toast for breakfast and we would eat only half of it before giving up. after team practice i think channing421 had to leave again so DT and NL008 brought out the pillows again lol.

when channing421 came back we did more team practice and we watched evan chen badge at geo while NL008 and DT were starting world war 14 next door. then i showed channing421 sprint #30 on stnuochtam (one of my favorites) and he trig bashed and got 31 somehow. he sent it to peace09 asking what was wrong with his solution, idk if he responded. i showed channing421 my solution afterwards but i think he was still obsessing over what was wrong with his trig bash.

after more team practices we played monkey in the middle for about an hour (was very fun) and then had dinner where we played a bunch of cards. then we had more team practice then some indiv practice where i badged. then we played more cards and went to sleep.

Sunday, May 12. This was the day of written test. we were planning on making our cheer have a jab at massachusetts ("Austin is better than Boston which is basically Froston!") if they threw a jab at us but sadly they didnt . instead rhode island threw a jab at us ("We're 221 times smaller than Texas but 222 times better!") so we threw a jab at them ("Happy National Taxes Day! We're taxing Rhode Island!") lol. anyway we got 10 on team but NL008 and DT kind of threw indiv :/ (me and channing421 would throw cdr the next day ).

anyway after lunch we took an uneventful trip to the white house then just played more cards and started world war 34 with DT and NL008 (i kept saying that all this fighting is why they threw indiv). me and channing421 joined in a bit. then we had cdr practice after dinner which meant that we had to miss wmc but thats alright. it would kind of be useless tho given how badly we both sold :sob:

after that me and NL008 would discuss some problems and reasons why we thought peace09 was lying about his score (unfortunately he was not).

Monday, May 13. This was cdr day and results day. i was very surprised to get 4th written bc there were like 8 people who said they got 36+ but ig >half of them are capping. channing421 and i both got cooked 3-0 by ben j (orz) and laura (orz) although both of them were kind of throwing when they went against each other :/. yeah we threw and we would be depressed for the next hour "this is not a trophy! this is a badge! because we are badge!".

after lunch we just played more cards and ftw, and we also played some chesscom. the rest of the day would be mostly uneventful until the party. anyway the party was good but the music was WAY too loud and it also sucked. i discovered that me and DT made an insane air hockey team with a streak of 6 games followed by another streak of 4 games. we got some glow sticks and a bunch of them leaked so we had to throw them out :badge: and then i brought up the idea of writing a mock amc 10 on the plane with NL008 and DT. then we would play ftw and troll chess for the next few hours. I unfortunately failed to bid farewell to channing421 (he had to leave and i forgor that he wasnt on the plane) and peace09.

Tuesday, May 14. We woke up at 6:30 and rode the shuttle to the airport. NL008 and DT played chess (NL008 too orz at chess) while i was thinking of problems to write for the mock amc. before we got on the plane channing421 sent in one problem and then the rest of the mock was written on the plane by me, DT and NL008. channing421 would be a testsolver. NL008 grabbed a few problems (mostly nt/combo) from his computer files and i wrote a bunch of geo problems (they were actually pretty good especially #25, you should try it fr). we finished early and we would play two player games on DT's phone for the rest of the plane ride. ig thats the end of it because i was alone on the way back to austin.

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anyway nats was really fun but i do wish i had another chance at cdr bc i badged so hard,,, fairly satisfied with my written score tho.